This will probably never get read, but here we go anyway:
I'm having a ton of fun with rfceurope, its way better than rfc in my opinion, especially because of the larger space for each civilization (civs can have more than the 3 or 4 cities they used to be able to handle) and here are some of my comments
I've played a lot of different civs: ottomans, arabs, kiev, genoa, venezia, england, france, spain, netherlands, all on viceroy. Each civ seems to be way different from another which i like. There is a big improvement on the stability, I was actually able to expand to the true extent of the ottoman empire with no trouble at all, in additon other civs with "unstable" ratings can actually survive (it seems france is often in this state). However civs that should collapse such as Byzantium, never really do (in my genoa game they were still there til about 1650, when the ottomans finally plunged them into independent).
I tried Kiev and Arabs, both which I really liked until..... BARBARIANS. noone really warns you when theyre going to come, and they are so unbelievably powerful. Seljuks are no match for the arabs arbelestier, you basically have to spend 20 turns building an army to defeat them. Kiev was barely able to get longbowman in time, but not enough time to mass produce them to prevent the onslaught of Mongols. Often times 8-10 would spawn every turn. Even with castles and city defender 2 on a hill, they were no match, because they often would just ignore well defended cities and go farther west. Also, they were spawning in random locations in my territory (i thought they could only spawn in fog of war) and some spawned in eastern hungary on my west borders in mountains and attacked me from there! Every other team ive played, kiev died within 10-20 turns of mongols coming they died, UNBALANCED.
From that aside it's really well made. I like the wonders, resources, projects, corporations, the whole bit. I think protestantism is well done, same with crusades, catholicism could use some upping though, it just cant compete with the other 3 in bonuses. Genoa was actually a ton of fun to play, I got to conquer most of Italy, North Africa and of course the required islands, and the corporations were tons of fun.
One note about france, their first objective is VERY unrealistic, you basically would have to settler spam and then your cities would flip when burgundy, germany, genoa/venezia spawn. I think the German spawn should be removed AT LEAST, and maybe the italy one. france didnt invade Italy til the 1500s... but I guess if youre talking about charlemagne, then france should start with a sizeable force of armored cavalry crossbowman longswordsman and settlers. the first objective shouldnt be almost impossible
Also plagues i feel are just too common. There should just be 4 i believe, because some civs get hit 4 times - wayyy too much
Anyway this is a great game, and I hope people still make this, even though civ5 is out (civ5 cant support this awesome of a game)
EDIT: Two more comments, the ottomans starting position seems a little weird. There is no reason to settle the city spot (and frankly no room, constant and the city to the west cover all but 1 tile) so the AI spawn there and get a TON of overlap. Also the spawn area for the Ottomans isnt large enough, it takes a long time for the ottomans to conquer EAST, wait didnt the ottomans come from the east?? They should spawn around ankara (middle of turkey) and get everything east of that, and basically conquer westward.
Also the plaque starts in odd areas. As the ottomans i was able to avoid plague because i could get open borders closed soon enough, because plague usually originated in italy or around there. Didn't plagues usually come from asia? i feel like the plagues should start in constantinople or kiev
